


Home Demonstration

by Gioiosa



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Dom/sub, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-24
Updated: 2012-06-24
Packaged: 2017-11-08 10:06:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/442040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gioiosa/pseuds/Gioiosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Aaron Hotchner discovers Spencer Reid's hobby: being a Dom. A relationship, but not truly slash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Demonstration

**Author's Note:**

> The first story I ever posted, brought on by an evening reading fan fiction and finally asking my husband, "Why is Reid always a bottom?" Originally posted on 9 December 2009.

  
  


  
  


**Home Demonstration**

  
  


The first weirdness was a message on Reid's answering machine when he, Hotch, and Morgan arrived at Reid's apartment with boxes of handouts and labels for the next seminar series. It was a female voice, tremulous and needy.

"Spencer, come on," she said. "Swordfish, sweetie. Roger will never know. I need you so much, baby. Call me. Call me any hour of the day or night. You know the words I won't say. Come on, Spencer, give me a break!"

Reid selected Erase and deleted the message, a mildly annoyed expression on his face.

"OK," Derek said, "I gotta ask: What the hell is that all about? I had no idea you were such a player."

"I'm not. She just wants it rough, and I'm pretty good at giving it rough. But she's also married and she tells him she's faithful, and I won't cross that line."

Hotch looked at Morgan.

Morgan mouthed _Rough?_

Hotch shrugged.

Reid began laying out ranks of color-coded handouts, looking, as usual, about as rough as a Twinkie—a long, scrawny Twinkie.

Morgan gave in to curiosity before Hotch did. "I'm having trouble trying to picture you giving anyone anything rough, kid. Except maybe story problems."

A faint smile twisted Reid's features. "That's your loss."

"Whoa, whoa! _My_ loss? Reid, maybe I'm out of line here, but it sounds like you're saying that you swing both ways."

"Maybe I do and maybe I don't, Morgan. I can't believe that I have to remind you that dominance is all about power and control, not sex."

"Like rape."

Reid rolled his eyes. "Asshole," he murmured.

Hotch stopped even pretending to sort labels, watching the confrontation. From where he sat, he could see what Derek could not. Spencer Reid's whole body orientation had shifted. His expression was confident and relaxed; his posture fluid, almost sensual.

"I challenge you—and you, too, Hotch."

"Reid," Hotchner said, letting an edge of authority slip into his voice.

"Sir?"

"Leave me out of this."

"I'm just reminding you that one of the most common requests that top executives have for call girls—or guys—is to be dominated. It reduces stress levels and helps them to—"

Hotch ratcheted up the vocal authority. "Reid."

"I'm just _saying_ ," Reid protested. "Any time you want a home demonstration, all you have to do is ask. You two are both wound up so tight I could probably make a believer out of either one of you in about fifteen minutes. Sex is not the focus, so there's no need to let go of your gender-identity issues."

Morgan said, "Yeah, right, kid."

Reid made a dismissive noise. "What's that you're always saying about not knocking it until you try it, Morgan?"

Fortunately, at that point Prentiss and Jareau arrived. They brought with them heavy folders fresh from the printing offices, two bags of Thai take-out, and hot gossip about Erin Strauss, gossip that Hotchner had to pretend he wasn't interested in.

That effectively ended the earlier line of conversation.

Several weeks later, the Team came over for Szechuan at Hotchner's apartment.

Afterward, Reid, the last to leave, perched on one of the stools in Hotchner's kitchen, a bowl of peppermint ice cream in those surprisingly large hands with their spidery fingers. His eyes seemed sleepy and patient, but he wore that smile of serene confidence again, the one he had worn when…when…when….

How in the hell could anybody so young, so vulnerable-looking—a grown kid eating ice cream—represent himself as good at _giving it rough_?

_And why am I thinking about this?_

And of course, the immediate answer was that he was so wound up he wanted to shoo Reid out of the apartment so he could have another drink or two (or three or four) without brain-boy—with all the best of intentions—ratting him out to Strauss.

Not to mention the relaxation therapy crap they wanted him to sign up for.

"Hey, Hotch," Reid said suddenly, licking the bottom of his spoon, "do you think you're ready for that little home demonstration?"

He could have said no, maybe should have said no, but instead he folded his hands together under his chin. "Your better-attitude-through-spanking thing?"

Reid blinked. "Ooh, that was cold," he said, but there was no resentment in his voice. "No spanking involved." He grinned at Hotchner's surprised eyebrow. "No cuffs. No undressing. No whips-and-chains. No uninvited sexual contacts."

"You're trying to talk me into this."

"Two things, Hotch. Number one, I never talk anyone into this stuff. If it isn't voluntary, I don't want any part of it. Number two—" His smile was lazy, luminous, and utterly predatory. "—when you say that I'm talking you into _this_ , instead of _that_ , then, psycho-linguistically speaking, you've already made your decision."

"Voluntary? You said it was about dominance."

"It's a voluntary decision to enter the relationship." That eerie smile glowed yet warmer. "Once we're in it, I'm completely in charge. No arguments." His tone lightened. "For fifteen minutes."

_Fifteen minutes. No cuffs, no whips-and-chains, no stripping, no sex. I can manage fifteen minutes of almost anything else, and honest to God, how can Spencer be anything but a total Fluffernutter? Best case, it might help. Worst case, he'll just embarrass both of us._

"All right, Reid, let's say I'm in. Now what would happen?"

"What _will_ happen is that it's, ah, quarter to eight. We'll begin at nine-fifteen."

"And what would I have to-"

"All you _will_ have to do," replied Reid, again smoothly prying the verb out of the subjunctive mood, "is remember two things. If you want me to stop anything I'm doing, you say 'Cape Town.' If you want to encourage me, want it faster or rougher, for instance, you say 'Please.' Work on remembering that. You wouldn't want to say 'Please' and get the opposite of what you're looking for.

"The other thing is that those two words are all you have. You can't move around. You can't talk to me, you can't look at me, and you can't touch me. If you don't comply with something I ask of you and you haven't said 'Cape Town,' I will assume that you're playing a dominance game and daring me to punish you—and I will, Hotch. Don't think I don't know how.

"So you only have two options, but if you think about it, they tip the balance of power over in your direction. Just like we've all learned in sexual psychopathology coursework, in so-called 'normal' Dom-sub exchanges, all together now, class, _the bottom actually runs the show_."

Hotch had learned that, read that, had actually repeated it in lectures and profiling workshops—but he didn't really buy it.

Reid nodded over Hotch's shoulder. "That's a closet door?"

Hotchner's mouth and throat felt dry. "Yes."

"Fine. At nine-fifteen by this clock here, I'll meet you in front of that door. At that moment, you surrender everything but 'Please' and 'Cape Town' to me."

"Is it important that's it's a closet door?"

"No, I just wanted to make sure it doesn't lead right out into the hall. We might get a little noisy."

Hotch nodded uncertainly. "Do I need to change—"

Reid took a long, slow look at Hotch's jeans and sweatshirt. "Everything is just fine. I'll see you in eighty-nine minutes."

He realized within the first two minutes that the only reason Reid wanted him to wait an hour and a half was to heighten his apprehension. Spencer sat cross-legged on the floor humming along to his MP3 player and inspecting Hotchner's book collection.

Hotch paged through three journals and could not recall a word he had read. His mouth was cottony. His palms were sweaty. By the time nine o'clock rolled around, he had been to the bathroom twice.

At nine-fourteen, feeling like an idiot, he got up off the couch and crossed to the closet door.

Simultaneously, Spencer Reid unspooled himself, rising like a cobra from a basket, all sinuous continuity.

_Where's the switch that toggles him from gawky to graceful?_

He turned and nodded at Hotch.

"You're mine now," he said in the softest of voices. "Don't say a word. Just stand with your back against the door and close your eyes. Keep your hands at your sides. If you can't do that, put them behind you."

_Shit._

Hotchner obeyed. He tensed when he heard Reid's loafers brush along the carpet as he approached.

Under even the best of circumstances, Aaron Hotchner had intimacy issues. He didn't like people getting physically close to him any more than he liked them poking around in his psyche, and he didn't care for that at all. Sometimes, when he suffered an attack of honesty, he would admit to himself that his obsession with his job had only been a symptom in his breakup with Haley. He could give of himself for only so long, and then he would have to scuttle back to the safety of distance, the shell of formality.

_So exactly why am I doing this, again? Did I think he was going to phone it in? Or read it to me?_

"Nod or shake your head," Reid said. "Are you afraid?"

Hotch opted to lie. He shook his head. Like most successful lawyers, he had long been an accomplished actor. As a profiler, he had honed his craft so he could mislead even the most suspicious, paranoid subject.

Reid chuckled. "And that's supposed to fool _me_?"

On the other hand, he realized, the people he worked with every day were not so easily misled.

He opened his mouth to say, _Not afraid, just nervous_ , but Reid shushed him.

"No talking. And keep those eyes closed."

He nodded his understanding.

"You have a wonderful bone structure," Reid said, his voice smooth and sweet as peppermint ice cream. His fingers touched Hotch's cheekbone, and Aaron jerked. "It's OK, Hotch," he whispered. "It's just me.

"That bone structure suggests strength and aristocracy," he continued. Deft fingers explored his face. Reid was so close Hotch could feel the warmth of his breath, feel the kid's tangled hair brushing against his brow.

_I should run. I should scream “Cape Town” and get the hell out of Dodge._

No doubt now; boy genius's face was no more than a centimeter or so from his own.

"I want to heighten the contrast a little," Reid continued as he stroked the chief's jaw and temples. "To dial up the color. I want to slap you—not hard, just a little. Nod or shake your head to let me do this."

_Why am I so unsteady?_

Thinking _just this once_ , Hotchner nodded.

Reid's caressing continued for perhaps half a minute more, then his palm cracked without warning sharply across Hotch's left cheek.

"Beautiful," he gasped. "I didn't realize how pale you'd become until now. Just—" He stopped, as though lost for words.

Hotch stood motionless, his hands fisted at his sides, as Reid explored his cheekbones, his brow, his chin, his ears, his mouth. When Reid asked for the go-ahead to slap his right cheek, he gave grimly determined permission. As before, Reid's immediate follow-up was to increase the intensity of his gentler touches. The mixed message of the slaps and the almost worshipful fingers left him both confused and stimulated. The enforced intimacy kept him on the fringes of panic.

_If you could do that from about ten feet away, I might be a little happier._

"Shhh," Reid breathed, laying his forehead against Hotchner's. "You're shivering, Hotch. There's nothing to be afraid of. It's just me. May I hit you again, just a little bit harder?"

Aaron bit back a whimper.

_What do we have left? Ten minutes? Twelve? Can't be more than that._

"That's just fine," Spencer told him. "You can make all the noise you want. You just can't talk."

By the third repetition, the blows were fairly substantial. Hotchner's knees were so weak from the flood of stimuli that he clung to the closet doorknob with his right hand so he could stay upright.

_Fifteen minutes. I can take this._

Then it was his hair, and requests to pull it. Then his mouth, and requests to pinch his lip, pinch the side of his tongue. To drag his fingernails down the hollow of Hotch's throat, into the loose neck of his sweatshirt and out to his collarbones. Technically, it hardly qualified as pain—more like nervous system invasion, if there was such a thing.

He still managed to stay on his feet, although the hand that wasn't on the doorknob now clung damply to bunched-up fabric along the leg of his jeans.

Part of him, the part his team called bullying and his wife called control freak, wondered why he was still putting up with this abuse. He wasn't even fully conscious sometimes that it was Spencer Reid commanding him, hurting him, soothing him.

"Nod or shake your head," Spencer said finally. "Will you show your appreciation by kissing my fingers?"

_Ew. But…._

As he nodded, he sensed some final shard of resistance falling away.

He surrendered to the sensations Reid wrung from him. When Reid's hands moved away, Hotch turned his head blindly in search of them.

Then Reid's whole slim body leaned against his.

"You're so warm, Hotch. I'm going to take your wrists now."

And after a moment, "I'm going to twist them up behind your back."

Without hesitation Hotchner nodded his acceptance. The sensations began to intoxicate him, or at least hypnotize him. His nerve endings sang and his heart pounded. Every time Reid twisted his arm up between his shoulder blades, the torque forced him to arch his body against the geeky kid who had morphed so abruptly into scary.

Gradually, he realized that he had actively started to move his hips against Spencer's. He had the most insistent erection he had experienced in months.

_And when did I become such a fucking perv?_

"Don't move," Spencer warned. "Don't touch me."

Hotch gritted his teeth and tried to stand still, but every muscle in his body screamed for release. He managed just barely to limit his movement by bracing himself against the door jamb.

"Nod or shake your head: Will you kiss my hand again?"

Hotchner nodded unsteadily, like a drunk.

"I'm going to hold you now. Don't move."

After a long embrace, Spencer let his right hand trail all the way down Hotch's torso. He pressed his lips to Hotch's ear and whispered, "Nod or shake your head: May I open your jeans?"

Teeth gritted, Hotchner nodded. The self-control required to keep his eyes closed, to keep his hands to himself, to refrain from talking, left few resources to master the rest of his shuddering body.

When his zipper was down, Reid murmured against Hotch's ear. "Nod or shake your head: May I touch you?" His fingers brushed Hotch's erection, and Hotch whimpered openly as he nodded.

Reid's touch was feather-soft, teasing, maddening, worse than tickling. Aaron could endure no more.

"Please," he rasped. "Please! Please!"

Instantly, Spencer responded, gnawing his earlobe as he moved his hand rapidly up and down. "That's so good," he groaned. "I'm going to use my fingernails on you now."

"Please-please-please—" Then he no longer had the breath to say anything. His orgasm erupted from the soles of his feet and ripped through him with a violence that left him deaf, blind, and stupid. He thought maybe he had screamed somewhere along the line, but he couldn't bring himself to care about it.

When he was again aware of his surroundings, he sat on the floor, still dizzy and throbbing, his head lolling back against the door. His breath came in great shivery gulps.

Reid sat beside him. "Open your eyes," he commanded. "Look at me."

When Hotch obeyed, Reid held up his cupped hand, sticky with Hotchner's semen. "Lick it clean," Spencer directed, his voice calm and controlled. Hotch bent to the task without hesitation. It seemed important to demonstrate how compliant, how submissive he could be.

When he was done, Spencer smoothed the damp hair off Aaron's brow. "Fourteen minutes," he said. "We're done. Feeling more relaxed?"

It took several seconds to respond, and when he did, he could only say, "Ohh, my God."

Every place Reid had touched, slapped, or pinched still tingled. He felt both completely relaxed and completely alive, a combination he had rarely experienced since, oh, probably junior high. And, yes, more than a little freaked and self-conscious.

"Yes, good, isn't it? Usually it lasts longer, and of course you always have to keep escalating the level of stimulation, but you raise it gradually."

"It was—amazing. Is it always like that?"

Reid stroked Hotchner's temple and mouth with his knuckles. It was odd for Hotch to have his eyes open, to watch a subordinate demonstrate such a casual familiarity with his body.

"It's always different. It depends on what both parties seem to need at the time, at least the way I do it."

Something that had nagged at Hotch earlier now crystallized in his mind. "This summer, when we all went out to Ben and Gigi's at the lake, you and Prentiss were—goofing around, I guess. Chasing each other in and out of the water. And she nailed you with an elbow and yelled something like, Cape Town, asshole."

Reid's lips twitched into a grin.

"To be accurate, what she said was 'Cape Town, fuckwad.'"

_And I thought they were arguing about South Africa, for some crazy reason_.

Hotch cleared his throat. "Is she—does she—”

"You would have to ask her," he replied. "I only speak for myself."

"Do you have a clientèle?"

"Hotch, I'm not a whore. I don't do this for money."

"Then why—"

Reid stretched his arms. He yawned hugely, and let his upper body slide down the door so he lay sprawled out on the carpet, once again just a gawky, geeky brainiac in his mismatched, ill-fitting clothes. "I just really, really like to do it. And when I can hook up with people whose preferences are complementary, then we both get satisfaction."

"Then do you have other people who do this to you?"

"Nope," he purred. "I don't take it. I just dish it out."

"But—what do you get out of it?"

Reid gave a short snort of a laugh. "Usually I don't answer that while a relationship is still in a new and experimental phase. But you have the resources so you'll figure it out anyway, so…."

He raised his chin to look up from the floor, which meant that the two of them viewed each other as upside-down images. He drew a deep breath, then he reached up and back to touch Hotchner's lips with one finger.

With an unexpectedly shy smile, he said, "It's different with everyone, Hotch, and it's different every time. With you, tonight, watching the sweat run down your face, feeling your body trembling against mine, having you go off in my hand like that, that control was about the most erotic thing imaginable."

Hotchner blushed, cleared his throat, and looked away.

"Hotch," Reid said sternly, "you're a big boy. Don't flip out about your sexual identity."

"I wasn't."

Another snort. "Yeah. Right. Sure. Jeez, Hotch, you're a guy. Your heart and brain may want to have a big say in what you're getting into, but your nerve endings couldn't care less."

"Obviously, it matters to you."

"But we're not talking about what my hormones and I might or might not be. We're talking about you and your hormones."

"And this is supposed to reassure me?"

Reid folded his arms, corpse-like, across his chest. "It can if you want it to."

A minute or two passed in silence.

"So," Hotch said at last. "'Cape Town' and 'Please,' those are always the words?"

"For me they are. Everybody has their own safe words. Then the other party and I will share a code word for us to use if we're making an arrangement to meet—mostly just so we can differentiate it from 'Let's hit the bars tonight' or 'Want to come over and watch the game?'"

"Uh, like your friend on the answering machine? Like, ah, 'Swordfish'?"

Reid seemed pleased. "Exactly. And the other person—like you—decides what that word will be. You may never want or need to use it—but there will never be another session without that word." He popped to his feet. "Ice cream?"

"No, thanks. You go ahead."

Reid headed for the refrigerator. "It's almost gone," he warned when he got there.

"Finish it off," Hotchner said. "Knock yourself out."

"Can I get you anything?"

Twenty minutes ago, he would have given a lot for a large, neat scotch. Now, he said, "No, I'm good."

Reid sat cross-legged near him and attacked the last bowl of peppermint ice cream with the enthusiasm of a major refined-sugar addict.

Hotchner rolled to his side and propped his head on his left hand.

_Good God, I am so alive…. Would I ever really agree to this again? Probably not, but—just just in case. Like seat belts and flood insurance and antioxidants._

He closed his eyes and considered his options.

"I have my word," he said finally.

Just a trace of that predatory light glowed in Reid's eyes. "Really?"

_Has that vulpine cast always been there? And if so, how did I miss it?_

"Yes."

Another spoon of ice cream and a grin. "Gonna make me wait for it, Hotch?"

Hotchner leaned closer. "Fluffernutter."

He was rewarded with a long, baffled gaze from genius boy. Then Reid brushed back some strands of hair that dangled too close to his ice cream bowl. He shook his head and sighed, "Hotch, I'm just not gonna ask."

"Good God, something young Dr. Reid doesn't know. 'Fluffernutter.' A soft, gooey East Coast comfort food: peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff on white bread."

Reid's features twisted and he faked a shudder. "That's even worse than I thought it could be. Does it refer to you, or to me?"

"Consider that question your homework, Reid."

"Have you always been this twisted?"

Hotchner did something not ordinarily in his character. He extended his right arm, palm forward.

After a second's confusion, Reid high-fived him and beamed. "Fluffernutter, huh?"

"Fluffernutter."

~ End ~

 


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